Join the Conversation

After chaotic public Beulah Beltway meeting in August, second meeting set for Oct. 30

Jim Little, jwlittle@pnj.com
Published 6:00 a.m. CT Oct. 18, 2017

CLOSE

A public meeting on the Beulah Beltway project was canceled after a large crowd overwhelmed the venue set for the meeting.
Jim Little/jwlittle@pnj.com

Commissioner Jeff Bergosh explains the Beulah Beltway project to Escambia County residents during a chaotic public meeting on Monday, Aug. 7, 2017, that had to be rescheduled.(Photo: Jim Little/jwlittle@pnj.com)

The maps of the routes posted online were not drawn to scale and appeared to take out portions of neighborhoods in the southern portion along Beulah Road.

Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh tried to address the crowd to explain the project would only need an additional 2.25 feet of right-of-way on each side of Beulah Road but was shouted down.

"It was too small of a venue," Bergosh told the News Journal on Tuesday. "The air conditioner was not sufficient, but most importantly people didn't really know what to expect. It was driven by a lot of rumor and innuendo."

Bergosh said he is expecting the October meeting to be better and get people the answers they're looking for on the project.

"It's not going to be a screaming match of who can yell the loudest and curse in church like what happened last time," Bergosh said.

An agenda has been posted for the meeting on the project's website, BeulahBeltway.com, along with information on the status of the project.

A map with the proposed routes for the Beulah Beltway project. The width of the routes are not to scale.(Photo: Escambia County)

People with questions on the project will have to submit written questions on cards at the meeting, and county staff, Bergosh and Commissioner Steven Barry will answer the questions.

"We want to be respectful of all the people there," Bergosh said. "We want to be respectful of the facility, which will be a church. Frankly, we just need to be respectful period — even in disagreement."

The public meeting is part of the Alternate Corridor Evaluation (ACE) portion of the project required under the National Environmental Policy Act to obtain federal funding for a highway project, according to David Forte, county project manager.

In September, the Escambia County Commission voted to eliminate four of the seven routes under consideration.

"(The elimination of the routes) will help us get the corridor evaluation study done quicker, and it will alleviate some of the concerns of the residents in District 5 and in District 1," Bergosh said.

After the Oct. 30 meeting, the Escambia County Commission will have to vote to submit at least one route to the Federal Highway Administration to move the project forward.

Once the highway administration signs off on the evaluation, it will then move into a project development and environmental study (PD&E).

Forte said the ACE part of the process is like looking at the routes from a 30,000-foot level, and the PD&E study is looking at the project from a 15,000-foot level.

"Once you complete your PD&E study and get federal approval, then you go into your formal design, and that's when you're at the ground level and you're walking the road," Forte said.

To get to that part of the project could take several years, Forte said.

The project is broken into two parts — north of I-10 and south of I-10.

“We've got an agenda we're going to stick with and a good venue. I think it is the recipe for a very successful meeting.”

Jeff Bergosh, Escambia County Commissioner

The timeline on the project's website shows design on the southern section finishing in 2021 and construction beginning in 2023 after the county obtains right-of-way.

The northern section would begin construction in 2027.

Simultaneously, the Florida Department of Transportation is working on obtaining the approval for a new interchange on I-10 that will connect to the project, Forte said.

"That will be something we will discuss openly with the department, the commission and the public hopefully sooner rather than later about how we want to connect (the Beulah Beltway) to this interchange," Forte said.

The meeting at Hillcrest Church is the culmination of the ACE process that began in 2015.

"We've got an agenda we're going to stick with and a good venue," Bergosh said. "I think it is the recipe for a very successful meeting."